Customer Rating:  
Summary: A very boring play, BUT...
Comment: I gave Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead only one star, because that's how I felt about this play when I first saw it performed. At the time, I was just a kid who was unfamiliar with the story of Hamlet. To me it was boring, made no sense, and was not the least bit funny.
HOWEVER... If you love Hamlet and know the story well, you will love this play. Before making any hasty judgements on Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, I strongly urge you to either read or watch Hamlet. Only then can you appreciate this play for what it is.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Rosencrantz & Gildenstern Are Dead
Comment: Great piece of writing, especially since it borrows characters from the greatest playwright in English literature. Shakespeare's characters fare marginally better under Stoppard's pen, or possibly more so when you consider that the guys are DEAD!!!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dull.
Comment: I read the book first (I ALWAYS read the book first) and I was puzzled. Where was the wit? The Shakespearian sense of humor is certainly not always mine to say the least, but I'm not used to feeling as if I simply missed the boat entirely. I suppose my overall reaction would have to be a resounding "Hunh?" (Perhaps "Ho hunh!?")
Customer Rating:
Summary: Brilliant.
Comment: No mean to be offensive or anything, but I honestly feel that if people do not find R&G Are Dead hysterically funny and/or wonderfully ingenious, they have probably missed Stoppard's point in this play.
This play was during the age known as Theatre of the Absurd, when ridiculous plots and characters were used to overall convey themes about life and people's preposterousness. As one can see, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are precisely such characters, as is their plight.
It should be noted that this play is a much more valuable experience for the reader if he has read Shakespeare's Hamlet previously, as it is R&G that serve a purpose in the play. However, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead was not written to enforce the thematic points of Hamlet, I simply recommend it to give readers a different perspective. And it is a wonderfully funny perspective, at that.
It is a wonderful work. I highly recommend it for those who are not too fixated on trying to find a deeper meaning with Hamlet, because that simply is not the reason for this play's existence.
Customer Rating:
Summary: grossly overrated
Comment: Hard to believe all the good reviews here. This is a silly little book, with no story, no coherent dialog, and no meaning. Worst of all the jokes are not funny.
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